Terrible
by Mydriasis
Summary: Boone is convinced he is a terrible, terrible person.
1. Chapter 1

When the Courier brought Jeannie May to the front of Dinky, Boone almost thought twice about pulling the trigger. The proprietor of the Dino Dee-lite Motel was usually a nice woman, perhaps a bit sensitive and snappish to the traveler that was critical about the shortcomings of Novac, but hardly the type to sell a wife and mother to a society of ruthless slavers for a few caps. The Courier had shuffled Jeannie May out of the motel, made up some excuse to get the old woman to the front of the dinosaur, and had donned Boone's red beret, but still he hesitated to pull the trigger. But the Courier stood resolutely by the outcropping of rocks, her face calm as she stared up into the darkness of the sniper's nest, and had even left her Brotherhood scribe companion somewhere out of sight to reduce distraction. Jeannie May squinted towards the dinosaur, looked around on the ground, tried to figure out why the stranger had brought her out here. The Courier stood patiently, capped with Boone's beret. He pulled the trigger.

When the Courier met back up with him in the dinosaur's mouth, she was once again joined by the pretty scribe with the kind eyes and wispy smile. The Courier handed Boone his beret and a holodisk while the scribe chattered about the incriminating receipt found among Jeannie May's possessions. Boone carefully turned over the holodisk in his hand while the scribe recited the message that was on it, detailed how she and the Courier had to pick a safe to get to it, but her enthusiastic diatribe was nothing but muffled static in his brain as he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He had put down the dog that sold his wife and unborn child, and he hoped he had given them some semblance of peace in the afterlife, but now he was unsure how to proceed. In the time between Carla's demise and Boone's retribution his sole driving purpose was to find the perpetrator and make them pay. And now that he had, in no small part thanks to the Courier's interference, he still felt unsatisfied. Perhaps he would have preferred a more intimate confrontation with Jeannie May, to let her know that he found out about her terrible secret, to see the terror in her eyes just before her put a bullet in her brain. He had hoped it would bring him peace, but instead he felt just as empty and conflicted as before.

His own swirling cloud of dark emotions pushed aside, he came back to the conversation a little, noting that the Brotherhood girl was still going on about the nuances of Jeannie May's treachery and how the Courier had come to unearth it. _The girl liked to talk_ , Boone noted. The Courier herself was leaning against the flaking plaster wall of the sniper's nest, watching her companion recount the tale. A woman of few words, the Courier, though obviously a woman of action and careful planning as evidenced by the holodisk still clutched in Boone's fist. He was suddenly overcome with a rush of gratitude for the woman, who had brought to him his wife's true killer. Left to his own devices, Boone knew his personal suspicions would have eventually led him to seek revenge against Manny for Carla's disappearance, and he was not sure how the heaviness of another innocent life lost by his own hand would have affected him. He was glad that he had trusted the Courier with this, that she was more patient and clever than he was, that she didn't buy into incriminating anecdotes and lazy hunches. It was this wash of relief that had him nodding as the scribe suggested he leave his post in Novac to travel.

"You could come with us," the Courier said, the first words he'd heard out of her since he handed his beret to her three days ago. The scribe exclaimed excitedly and agreed, enthusiastically explaining their current goal of finding a damning piece of technology to rouse her Brotherhood fellows into action. _The girl really liked to talk_ , Boone noted again with added exasperation. Boone declined the invitation; he knew three was a crowd, especially in the Mojave Wasteland. Traveling the wastes in a group larger than a duo was asking to be set upon by every Fiend raiding party and Powder Ganger encampment in the area; even if they were all careful and quiet, they'd still have three sets of feet kicking up dust, three packs clanking and shifting with gear and loot, three breaths echoing off of abandoned buildings and canyon walls. The scribe looked a little crestfallen, but the Courier simply nodded and promised to ask again later before turning back into the gift shop with her Brotherhood friend in tow. A few minutes later he saw them through the scope of his rifle, following the road past Dinky. The pair side-stepped the corpse of Jeannie May and gave him a little wave before heading down the broken pavement away from Novac.

Boone watched them for a few seconds before returning to his nightly scouting duty. It was mere minutes of sitting in the dark, claustrophobic dinosaur mouth before he felt the familiar drifting of his mind as it turned to darker thoughts, as it was wont to do during the idle hours of his shift. He thought of Carla, and Bitter Springs, the usual ghosts of his regret cropping up but now punctuated by the image of Jeannie May. He conjured up a thousand different scenarios of how Jeannie May helped plan the Legion's heist, how he should've been more attentive, how he could've stopped it. His grip tightened on his rifle and he wished for a moment that he too was walking away from Novac, that three was not too many people to travel the Mojave.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been several weeks since he saw the Courier and her companion. Jeannie May's corpse had not been removed from its place crumpled amongst the rocks and its scavenger-picked bones served as a reminder of Boone's failure to protect his wife and child every time he would sweep past it through his scope. His usual routine was back in full swing, his days spent sleeping and his nights spent looking down the barrel of his rifle for Nightstalkers or raiders. The death of Jeannie May had yet to bring him a modicum of peace; instead, the usual miasma of guilt and rage that clouded his thoughts had engulfed him even more completely. He constantly relived his days spent enjoying the hospitality of the person who had sold his wife to the Legion; he remembered Jeannie May trying to calm him down as he frantically searched for any sign of Carla, Jeannie May sharing her condolences with him after his wife's fate was sealed, Jeannie May sending meals and drinks to his room to be sure he didn't starve himself to death while in the throes of his depression. The rational part of Boone's brain told him he didn't know it was Jeannie May's fault, she was playing her act of innocence to perfection, but another part that told him he was a monster, and a coward, and that he should've just known was quick to rear its head again. _Terrible_ , it would hiss.

It was enough to make Boone sick. Sleep was a welcome relief, dreamless thanks to daily doses of whiskey, and the active moments of his shift were bearable. If his brain was busy scouting, spotting, calculating distance, considering windspeed variables, working efficiently to bring down a potential threat, he could usually keep the swirling mass of thoughts from creeping up on him. It was the hours in between, where he was alone with his thoughts and the dark, static Mojave was stretched out before him, that were agonizing. Boone tried to not go crazy, but it was getting a bit more difficult with each passing day.

So it was no small relief when the Courier caught him one evening between his room and Dinky, his rifle slung over his shoulder and ready to relieve Manny of his shift in the dinosaur's mouth. She looked worse than the last time they met. Her black hair had been cropped close to her head, most likely to expedite the regular bouts of cleaning that the scabby patches on her scalp required, a sign that someone had yanked several fistfuls of hair out of her head. She had fresh bruises and new scratches, not at all uncommon for a Mojave drifter, but she was nursing what looked like the recovering stages of a broken cheekbone. Her armor had recently seen a decent amount of repair, Boone also noted, with several leather panels having been meticulously mended, a few outright replaced with looted parts, and many more marred with the black-singed rings that denoted the glancing blows of plasma weapons. Boone idly wondered how that mission to help the Brotherhood of Steel had ended.

"Are you ready?" The Courier asked with no preamble. Boone was confused for a moment. Ready for what? His shift? It took him a while to recall the Courier's promise made several weeks ago to ask him if he wanted to travel with her. Boone was about to decline again when he noticed the silence that settled between them—no enthusiastic, sarcastic remarks or good-natured chatter. No Brotherhood scribe girl. Boone cast another glance at the Courier's singed leathers and became worried concerning the fate of the kind girl with the power first.

"Where's your friend?" He asked, voice gravelly from disuse.

"New Vegas," the Courier replied by way of explanation. Boone stared levelly at her, the two of them knowing that a more detailed answer would be required before their conversation continued. "Things didn't go quite as we had hoped with the Brotherhood of Steel," the Courier admitted. "Veronica absconded from the Brotherhood in favor of a different path, and there were some of her old fellows that did not appreciate that. There were several events that were…unpleasant for her, and difficult to process. I told her to take some time off, unwind. Gave her the key to my suite and left her to herself." The Courier's eyes softened a bit, her voice affectionate. "Veronica is tenacious; has more fortitude than she gives herself credit for. She'll be okay."

Boone merely nodded and gave a noncommittal grunt, not quite sure what to make of the situation. He turned on his heel suddenly and walked briskly back into his room, slamming the door behind him. When he emerged several minutes later with his old Recon pack in hand, the Courier was waiting patiently, leaned up against a post in the shade.

"Ready," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Traveling with Courier Number Six had not been terrible. She didn't talk much, and neither did Boone, so many of their miles had been travelled in a comfortable, focused silence. She was forthright and honest, but usually friendly, and he didn't mind the short conversations they would have as they set up camp for the night. His monetary return had been excellent, better than any gun-for-hire contract he'd ever seen, with caps split evenly down the middle and looted goods claimed in a good-natured Finder's Keepers manner. The Courier set a grueling travel pace and at times seemed to actively pursue enemies to engage with, which left Boone too exhausted to think about anything except for keeping up with her during the day and sleeping during the night. During the months he spent cooped up in Novac's sniper nest, he had forgotten how much he had loved his time as a soldier for the NCR, crawling through untamed territory, thinking on his feet, acting on instinct and muscle-memory and quick decisions to get out of kill-or-be-killed circumstances. It felt good to be back, and it was nice to finally have something to occupy his thoughts besides Carla. Boone's only complaint was the Courier's terrible cooking, which never seemed to improve, though he never had the inclination to take over the responsibility of meal preparation.

They had set up camp for the night, and were sat around their crackling fire drinking warm bottled water and eating InstaMash and Salisbury steak that were so irradiated it made Boone's cheeks numb and his tongue tingle. The Courier was staring into the flames, chewing the tough, overcooked meat laboriously. Boone was wondering how she had managed to follow the preparation directions on the box of InstaMash to the letter and still render them practically inedible, when out of the corner of his eye he saw her steel herself and turn to him.

"Would you tell me about Bitter Springs?" she asked carefully, her voice level but unable to mask the uncertainty in her tone. She was poised like a spooked Brahmin, tensed around her shoulders and in her face, ready to apologize and retract her question immediately if he wanted her to. Boone thought the whole situation was absurb; he had helped her clear an irradiated vault of its feral occupants, witnessed her ferocity as she hunted down every Fiend leader she could find, watched her as she coerced a Legion Centurion into spilling his best-kept tactical secrets without laying a hand on him, but never had he seen her quite so nervous. He briefly enjoyed the sensation of holding power over the Mojave's most famous drifter, though he didn't allow those thoughts to linger.

Boone considered her request before answering, chewing his dinner slowly. His gut reaction was to tell her no, never. Bitter Springs was his source of greatest shame, and he didn't want anyone to see how deep his wounds still festered. But the Courier knew about Carla, having asked him after several weeks spent on the road together. It has been difficult to share, but he had, because the Courier was his friend and he had decided that she deserved to know a little about what made him tick. The Courier had been a silent and nonjudgmental listener, considering all the parts of the event and politely ignoring the evident self-loathing that boiled up despite his best efforts during his story. In the end, she had assured him he had made the difficult but absolutely necessary decision, and then she had went back to repairing her rifle. No pity, no should-haves, no disgust, and no further talk of Carla. Boone had appreciated it.

But Bitter Springs was different. The Courier was still his friend, an even closer friend now than she was when he agreed to tell her about Carla, but Boone still had his reservations. There was no mercy killing at Bitter Springs, no redeemable quality that could be spun into him being the good guy. Bitter Springs was a massacre, plain and simple. He wondered if the Courier would be able to maintain her lax, good-natured outlook if he explained how he perforated the skulls of a teenage boy and his grandmother as they frantically scrambled together through the canyon. He cast a glance in the Courier's direction, and took in her gentle eyes and nervous posture. He couldn't bear the thought of alienating her, his only friend, because of his past atrocities. He wasn't sure if he was capable of describing to her how similar it was to shooting wingless Bloatflies in a barrel. She saw him assessing her and gave him a small smile, nervous but reassuring. Boone breathed in deeply through his nose and decided that he would at least try to explain the horror that was Bitter Springs.

The Courier listened in the same quiet way she did when Boone had told her about Carla. She continued taking small bites of her dinner, gazing at Boone as he struggled to remember the details without allowing himself to sink back into that day, spiral into the void that was his memory that he had avoided during his months travelling with the Courier. When he was done recounting his memory of the massacre, trembling and breathing raggedly, a long silence stretched between them. Boone wished she would do something—berate him, pack up and leave, curse him and call him an animal, anything besides look at him with her gentle eyes and neutral expression.

At length, the Courier simply nodded at him.

"The Mojave is a terrible place," she said, "and it makes us do terrible things. It doesn't make us terrible people." She then returned to her attention to her meal, which had gone cold over the course of Boone's story. Boone considered her comment, then considered the Courier herself. She had visibly relaxed, staring off into the horizon and appearing as if in thought. He'd seen her do unspeakable acts. She'd sacrificed survivors of a reactor meltdown, huddled away in an antechamber of Vault 34, to ensure clean water got to NCR citizens on the surface. He fought off Chairmen thugs and watched as she put a .357 caliber round between Benny's eyes even as he knelt before her in his checkered suit and pleaded for mercy. She had been hounded for as long as Boone could remember by Legion assassins, seeking to avenge their brothers that had fallen to her savagery. She was an authority on infamy and horrible deeds. She was also a beacon of hope, solving the woes of the wasteland, doted upon by almost every person and territory she aided. She's not a terrible person, she's a dichotomy. Maybe he's his own dichotomy too.

Maybe.

"We should go to Bitter Springs," she said, momentarily tearing her eyes away from the Mojave skyline to glance at him.

"We should," he agreed.


	4. Chapter 4

Boone and the Courier crouched on the ridge of Coyote Tail Point, clutching their rifles with matching white-knuckled grips. Boone could detect the faintest tremor of the Courier's arms but did not comment upon it. He had already given her the chance to leave, right after he had shaken her to wakefulness to report the Legion raiding party that was racing towards Bitter Springs faster than Boone had ever seen such a large party travel. The Courier had immediately climbed to her feet, loading her rifle and her magnum revolver, her voice scratchy from sleep as she assured him they'd take the Legion down together, as always.

"There are too many," Boone had said solemnly. And then, even quieter, "Even for us."

The Courier had faltered a bit then, fumbling her ammo as she absorbed the enormity of his words. She and Boone had always been frank in their conversations, so she knew Boone's implied warning of death via overwhelming opposition was as good as a promise. The Courier had moved to load her revolver again, but still her fingers trembled. Boone's chest ached at her trepidation, having expected her to remain utterly steadfast in her loyalty even when faced with certain death. But a deeper, sharper pain gripped his heart and crowded his lungs as he considered his own rotten selfishness, that he would have her fight and die alongside him in a battle for his own personal redemption. He choked back a strangled sort of sound as her hand hovered over her revolver, her face twisted into an expression somewhere between panicked and pensive as she considered her fate.

"I won't blame you if you leave," Boone had finally said. The Mojave has bigger plans for Courier Number Six that superseded the fate of a washed-up military sniper. They had been visited often enough by Caesar's assassin squads to know that Legionaries were a mighty and formidable foe. Agile and clever, buoyed by fierce loyalty and a dreadful purpose, four or five Legion assassins had often come close to doing in Boone and the Courier. With an entire party of crimson beelining for them, the pair's chances seemed remote. He would not ask her to stay, because he knew she would if he wanted her to, and he couldn't make that decision for her. She might as well be Carla, and he with the life-ending bullet again. He didn't want to be a terrible person anymore. He had every intention of staying to defend Bitter Springs, to try to right his wrongs, but he would make sure she was safe if she decided to leave. He told her as much.

His quietly spoken words seemed to snap her out of her reverie and, with a fortifying glance towards him, she had loaded the last bullet into the chamber of her magnum, holstered it at her hip, and braced the butt of her rifle against her shoulder. No words passed between them, no witty quips or optimistic reassurances, just the steady howling of the wind as it whipped through the canyons and the frantic din of refugees trying to secure themselves against the oncoming tide of the Legion.

They held the ridge of the trail for excruciatingly long minutes, peering through their scopes for any flutter of crimson cloth in the distance. The Courier continued to tremble minutely, though her breathing was steady and her face was free of her previous panic. The shrieks of Bitter Springs citizens reached a fever pitch and heralded the arrival of the raiding party. A Legion Explorer must have scouted ahead of the party and reported back with the Courier's location because a detachment of Legionaries and their wardogs immediately set upon the pair. The Courier and Boone tried to keep their foes at a distance, picking them off with rifle shots, but the dogs were swift and their masters tenacious. As the onslaught continued, the Courier dropped her rifle and scrambled down the embankment, intent on meeting the battle head-on with her revolver.

At first, things went smoothly. Boone engaged the back line of oncoming troops while the Courier disposed of the dogs and any Legionary who managed to evade the crosshairs of Boone's rifle. After the Decanus fell with a cry, the Courier returned to the ridge, panting and bleeding lightly from superficial wounds, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"There's more," she wheezed between breaths, "in the camp commons. I heard them. We gotta go." She turned abruptly and took off, not bothering to wait for Boone to scrabble down from his post to follow. They reloaded, inspected their weapons, and inspected each other as the din of panicked refugees grew louder.

Bitter Springs Proper was torn asunder, with refugees cowering in their tents as the few NCR troopers that had been tasked with their safety tried and failed to stop the Legionaries from overrunning the outpost. Boone and the Courier were engaged by gunfire the moment they rounded the bend and saw the bloodbath in the camp. Set upon by the Legion with a fire and ferocity that caught them by surprise, the pair instantly ran for cover, each holed up on opposite sides of the breezeway behind outcroppings of rocks. Without the higher ground advantage and with scarcely any time to breathe between the volley of Legion bullets, Boone struggled to fell any Legionary. If he managed to make contact, the soldiers would stumble only momentarily before rallying and continuing their assault as if they hadn't been hit by a .308 caliber round. The Courier was emptying rounds out of her magnum like a madwoman, but the Legionaries seemed wholly unaffected by the constant barrage of bullets. _A terrible sight_ , Boone thought as he watched a Legionary take a shot to the thigh and continue to limp towards them, and he decided then that the Legion's resolve was perhaps the most alarming thing he'd seen during all his time with the NCR.

Boone wished he could paint the Courier in a poetic light while she was engaged in combat, but he wasn't a man inclined to lying. She did not look like an angel of divine vengeance, beautiful and fierce as she waged war against her enemies. She did not move as if dancing, with a fire in her eyes that made them sparkle and a snarl on her lips that only enhanced her feral beauty. Hell, she wasn't all that pretty to begin with, and being covered in dirt and gunpowder and sweat didn't help her in the slightest. No, when the Courier fought, she scrapped like a caged Molerat, all anger and aggression and brutality. She wore an ugly scowl and furrowed brow as she aimed down the sight of her gun, focused on getting as much hot lead as she could into the tiny space between her enemy's eyes. When she ducked behind the boulder to reload, Boone could see the crimson blossom of a gunshot wound seeping through the shoulder panel of her armor. Boone covered her with rifle fire as she reloaded, trying to stop the slow and steady advancement of the Legion.

A big, scraggly dog crashed out from behind the wall of Legionaries, baying ferociously as froth spilled from its gnashing jowls. The Courier stepped out from behind the rock with fresh bullets in the chamber and, startled by the beast rushing toward her at full tilt, fired a glancing blow off the dog's shoulder. This only seemed to spur the wardog on because, faster than Boone could turn his rifle away from the Legion soldier he was engaging, the dog leaped at the Courier and buried its teeth into her arm.

The world seemed to turn in slow motion during the moment it took for the dog to drag the Courier to the ground, her revolver flying from her hand as she collided with the hard earth. Boone heard her strangled cry followed by her pained, terrified howling as the dog relentlessly whipped its head from side to side, rending the Courier's over-repaired armor and sinking its teeth deeper into the yielding flesh of her forearm. Excited strings of Latin erupted from Bitter Springs as the Legion swarm saw the much-vilified Courier taken down by their mongrel. Beast and woman were grappling too frantically for Boone to attempt a shot at the dog, and as he readied himself to fly from his cover to wrestle the mutt off her, he heard her frantic pleas to _stop, keep shooting, help the people Boone_. His mind flashed back to Carla, hands shackled in front of her round belly as she wept on the auction stage. The memory melted away to the Great Khan boy's horrified face as his grandmother's skull split beneath Boone's bullet, splattering her grandson with her blood. The jeers of the Legion snapped him out of his momentary reverie, as did the cauterizing pain of a glancing blow from an assault carbine. Help the people, the Courier said, help Bitter Springs. _This is your chance to not be a terrible person,_ Boone told himself. _Right your wrongs, do what needs to be done._ The Legion soldier with the assault carbine was the first to fall to Boone's bullet.

As Boone waged war on the other side of the canyon, the Courier felt the dog give a viciously hard pull and force her shoulder out of its socket. She tried to stifle the scream as she felt her arm go unnaturally loose and her skin shred beneath the mongrel's teeth, groping wildly with her other arm to find her gun. Her legs were pinned beneath the dog and she had no leverage to pull them up, not that she could hope to pry the beast from her; she knew the Legion bred their wardogs big and vicious, but surely this specimen could go toe-to-toe with a Deathclaw Alpha. Her questing hand came up empty of a gun but fell upon a rock, rough and heavy against her fingers. Half-blind by pain, the Courier gripped the stone and swung with all the strength she could muster towards the source of her agony.

The rock collided with the side of the dog's head with a wet thud and a dull crack, and she felt a small measure of relief as the mongrel released her abused arm with a flinch. It stepped away from its prey in a daze, stumbling slightly over its own enormous paws, but the Courier followed it, swinging wildly with her rock. A chorus of shrill yelps and gut-wrenching cracking followed, and when Boone spared a glance, the mongrel's head was concave and its body still, save for the tiny twitches of a dying nervous system. The Courier scrabbled towards her gun with some difficulty, her arm dangling with an unnatural droop.

The Courier retrieved her revolver and returned to the outcropping of rocks as fast as her shell-shocked body could carry her, jarring her wounds with every uneasy step. Though her vision swam and her dominant arm was useless, hanging haphazardly at her side, she was determined to help Boone protect Bitter Springs. When her eyes focused enough to look down the sight of her gun, she noticed he didn't need much help; buoyed by his own purpose, he had felled a number of Legionaries while she was preoccupied with the dog. Still more soldiers were volleying fire at them, and she knew Boone must be feeling the effects of fatigue caused by his long and arduous firefight.

It had not been easy. The Courier was basically out of commission, shooting with her weaker arm and bracing her wrist against the rocks to steady her aim. She managed to get a few Legionaries in the arms and a few in the legs, and if Boone was quick and careful he could manage to finish them off while they stumbled for a moment. Her aim only seemed to be true when she could pick off a mongrel rushing towards them, and she expertly perforated the skulls of every Vexillarius she saw, the bullets finding their marks just below their headdresses. Boone would have found some enjoyment in this if he hadn't been bone-tired. When the last Legionary joined his brothers dead on the ground, Boone sank against the rock, panting like an NCR recruit on the first day of boot camp. His shoulder was bruised and sore from the kickback of his rifle, his arms shaking and lanced with pain. The Courier had managed to stumble to his side of the canyon, and she talked in garbled, excited sentences whose jumbled words he couldn't quite discern.

They stayed like this for a few minutes, her babbling incoherently as he leaned against the rocks and gazed at her with no small amount of affection. She was a good person, the Courier. She helped him be a good person too. This was the most talkative he'd ever seen her and he couldn't even understand what she was trying to say. Boone could feel the fatigue, the stress, the nervous energy concentrate within him, all the feelings he had pushed aside during the fight start bubbling to the surface. Instead of a dark cloud of debilitating dread and guilt like he expected—indeed, like he was used to—the feelings surfaced as a chuckle, which quickly dissolved into fits of hysterical laughter as he thought about the sheer absurdity of the situation. The Courier was taken aback by his outburst, able to count on one hand the amount of times she'd seen Boone show real mirth during the months she had traveled with him. As she watched his body shake with his invigorating laughter, she started to titter as well, though she didn't know what was so funny.

"You did good," the Courier slurred after the merriment stopped, patting him on the shoulder with her usable arm. Boone hiccupped a few times, quelling the remnants of his laughter, and just nodded his head.

"You too," he said. The Courier thought it might have been the nicest thing he'd ever said to her.

Her smile was wispy and goofy, her skin pale and slicked with blood and sweat, her pupils tiny pinpricks in the brown of her eyes. Silence stretched between the pair as they took in the situation, the battle, the future. The Courier was the first to break the comfortable silence.

"I need a doctor," she informed him suddenly, before crumpling to the ground.


	5. Chapter 5

In hindsight, Boone grudgingly thought, perhaps they should've gone directly to the camp for medical attention instead of lingering in the canyon soaking in the glory of their impossible victory. After she had fainted, Boone had tried to drag her to the Bitter Springs commons but his sapped strength coupled with her wounds had made it impossible. Instead, he left her laid out by the boulder and raced to the camp, calling for a medic. The NCR field medic broke away from treating the wounds of the surviving troopers long enough to follow Boone back down to the Courier's prone form to assess the damage. Dislocated shoulder, dislocated elbow, probable fractures of the radius and ulna, gunshot wound to the opposite shoulder resulting in a broken collarbone, severe blood loss. Boone's stomach clenched a little every time the medic listed another injury. Boone stood in the background staring numbly as the medic and a few civilians loaded her onto the makeshift gurney a few of the refugees had prepared, walked stiffly behind as they carried her through the canyon and into the camp, shuffled into the derelict building that served as the outpost's medical bay. On the medic's orders, an NCR trooper told Boone to stay in the waiting area, pushed him down into a ratty chair as the doctor and the Courier disappeared behind a partition. Boone sat and waited for what felt like an eternity, staring blankly at the partition as he saw the silhouette of the medic and his ragtag team of NCR and civilian nurses work.

Boone wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting in the waiting room, but the soreness of his lower back from the sitting in the stiff chair told him it'd been a long while. An NCR soldier, her uniform covered by a well-used doctor's coat, finally emerged from behind the partition, her entire face except for her eyes covered by a headwrap. Boone wondered if the NCR didn't supply the medic of quiet, placid Bitter Springs with enough surgical masks to outfit his whole medical team. The trooper-turned-nurse approached Boone and, to his utter relief, was wearing a tired smile when she pulled down the cloth covering her nose and mouth.

"The doctor sent me to tell ya she'll be fine," she drawled in the heavy accent of a Brahmin farmer, laying a reassuring hand on Boone's arm. "I know it sounded like there was a lot wrong with her…and there was! But the only thing we was real worried about was the bullet and the bleedin', and the Doc took care of both of those. She took four pints of blood for her transfusion, Heaven bless us we had it here. Her arm's tore to shreds, had to get tons of stitches, but the bones is set to heal fine, only thing is we can't seem to get her collarbone aligned, so when she's fit to travel you'd best visit the Old Mormon Fort to get some Followers help for that. She's restin' now, but we'll fix you up with a place to stay the night and let ya see her in the morning."

"I-I would like to see her now," Boone said, his voice quieter then he anticipated. "It's important to me. I just want to see that she's okay."

The soldier looked uneasy at his request, shifting from foot to foot. "I know you wanna go see her, but doctor's orders say you can't just yet…I'm sorry. She really is doing good, I promise."

Boone stood suddenly, his legs a bit shaky from the earlier battle and the time he spent sitting stock-still in an uncomfortable chair. The NCR trooper seemed to tense, ready for an altercation, but Boone raised his hands towards her in supplication. "Please," he asked, "she's my friend."

The soldier eyed him warily for a second, glanced at the partition, and then sighed. "Fine," she said with a grumble, "but if the Doc gets goin' about infections and pathogens I'm not takin' the heat, I'm blamin' you." Boone grunted his approval, and the soldier turned on her heel and walked swiftly towards the back of the building, motioning for Boone to follow.

The Courier was set up in a room in the very back of the building, in what used to be a supply closet that they cleared out to make room for the cot. The soldier left Boone in the doorway, staring at the Courier drifting in between wakefulness and sleep. He stepped in to the tiny, windowless room and closed the door behind him, the movement catching her eye. She blinked up at him a few times, squinted to focus— _drugged up on Med-X for the pain_ , Boone reasoned—and finally smiled with giddy delight when she recognized his red beret.

"Boone," she said by way of greeting, her drug-induced haze creating a peculiar lilt and slur in her voice. He returned her greeting with a taciturn _Courier_ and she nodded to him, said a few incoherent words, and then allowed her head to loll back onto the pillow to go to sleep. Boone made room for himself on a footlocker by the foot of her bed and posted up to watch for trouble, intent on waiting for her to wake up or die or enter cardiac arrest or something. It wasn't long before he was overcome by sleep as well.

The NCR medic had gone into a fit the following afternoon when he saw Boone with his patient, just as the trooper had warned, talking about _unsanitary conditions_ and _gangrene_ and _MRSA_ and some other stuff Boone didn't fully comprehend. But the Courier, in full control of her mental faculties after sleeping and refusing more doses of Med-X, told the doctor in no uncertain terms that Boone was not to be removed. The doctor didn't seem cowed by the Courier—surprising, considering she could command the respect of just about anyone she met—though he eventually conceded as a special thanks for warding off an entire Legion raiding party by themselves. The pair spent the Courier's recovery days in the tiny supply closet of the medical bay in much the same way they spent their time during travel; in a comfortable, focused quiet, punctuated by short conversations at meal time. It was as if they'd never left the ruined highways of the Mojave.

As nice as their reprieve from the wilds of Wasteland was, it was no small relief when the medic cleared the Courier for travel. He warned her against using her arm too much for a few weeks, and reminded her to visit the Followers of the Apocalypse for a follow-up for her collarbone. He fussed over her like a worried mother hen, checking and rechecking her gunshot wound for infection, manipulating her shoulder for pain, flexing her elbow to check for tendon weakness. When he could no longer find a reason to keep the pair in Bitter Springs, he handed the Courier her gear and discharged her from his care.

"Your armor's shot to shit and unfortunately we didn't have any spare materials on hand to repair it," the doctor said, a sour look on his face as he watched the Courier inspect her bedraggled armor. "I swear if I made half a decent wage I'd give you some caps to buy a new set because you shouldn't have even attempted to do what you did in that, leather's so bad you may as well have fought in pajamas." The Courier shot the doctor a look but seemed to accept her chastisement, grumbling about how she might not have been keeping up on repairs like she should have. "Lucky for you," the medic said, dismissing her peevishness, "the Brass made special arrangements with the Crimson Caravan to escort you to Freeside to see the Followers, as a sort of _thanks for services rendered_. One of their caravans was passing through our neck of the woods and they've been stalled for a couple days, waiting for you to get better. They have enough guards and armed merchants with them, you won't need to rely on your armor or go gunslinging with your recovering arm for the entire trip. For the love of all things holy, just be safe." The doctor seemed overwrought by the end of his reprimand, sighing dramatically before leaving to attend to his few other patients.

Boone's eagerness to get back on the open road was tempered as he watched the Courier struggle into her gear, saw her wince as she raised the cuirass over her head and slipped the panels over her still-injured collarbone, and as he helped her gingerly snake her stitched and tender arm into the sleeve. _Cleared by the medic, and tough as old boots, but hurting more than she'd care to let on_ , Boone noted. The doctor was right, her armor was practically torn asunder. The leather over the sleeve that the Legion mongrel shredded was all but gone, the bruised flesh of her arm visible underneath the tatters of the panels. The large leather plate that covered her upper chest was ripped where the bullet sliced through like butter, and still stained with her blood. There were panels missing, areas where the leather was thin and fluttery when it should be thick and rigid, signs of neglect caused by their busy life on the road. Even geared up like she had been before the fight for Bitter Springs, Boone was glad for the protection of the caravan, because she looked about as vulnerable as a newborn Bighorner. She holstered her gun on her hip, adjusted the fit of her greaves, and looked at him with that reserved, good-natured expression she always had.

"Let's get a move on, caravan's waiting for us," she said. Her face broke out into a grin. "We're going to take a break after we get stitched up in Freeside, going to enjoy the hospitalities of New Vegas for a while. I want to see how Veronica's doing, I haven't seen her in months! We've exchanged letters, you know, but we really need to have a talk. I'm happy to get to see her again," the Courier gushed in uncharacteristic excitement. Boone grunted and nodded, ushering her towards the door.

Boone blinked repeatedly when they stepped out into the campground, blinded by the sun even behind the tint of his sunglasses. Beside him, he heard the Courier take a deep breath. It'd been days since either of them had stepped out of the tiny room in the medical bay, and they'd grown accustomed to the stale air and artificial lights of the building. When they were able to focus, Boone noticed a small group of refugees starting to form, a quiet hum of excitement rising up from the crowd. The Courier gave a polite smile to a few citizens and moved towards the canyon, intent on meeting the caravan near the road. They hadn't gotten very far before a resident plucked up enough courage to approach the Courier. The man touched her elbow briefly, and quickly thanked her for what she did. More and more citizens followed suit, sometimes thanking her, sometimes him, sometimes both. One woman came up to Boone, her young daughter gripping her tattered skirt, and clutched his upper arm with a trembling hand.

"You're an angel," she told him, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "You're an angel sent to protect us." She gave his arm a soft squeeze and let him continue down the trail. Boone swallowed the lump that formed in his throat and hustled the Courier away from the camp a little faster than was strictly necessary, until the refugees returned to their homes and they could see caravaneers waiting for them on the road ahead. The Courier glanced at him but didn't say anything, just smiled that soft smile.

"You did good," she said finally, just like she had after the battle days before. Boone shrugged noncommittally and let the familiar silence of traveling with the Courier settle between them. _Maybe you aren't terrible,_ Boone thought in regards to himself, finally deciding it was the truth.


End file.
